MORNING SERIAL

DAD asked after the old couple’s health as he worked to fix the fuse using the fuse wire, wrapped around a little piece of cardboard that he’d brought with him.

“O, you know David. Can’t complain, can’t complain,” said Mr Owen in response. The truth did not need utterance.

My father then reached down to the electric point on the wall to switch the electric fire back on. I noticed that the flex leading to the fire was the old-fashioned kind with brown, woven cotton insulation.

It was frayed and trailed across the puddle-strewn floor.

Even as young as I was, I knew that was not right, but I said nothing, and Dad flicked the switch.

Feebly, the element began to glow, emitting all the while a loud humming sound. It was pathetic, that fire.

It would have been hell’s own task for a dozen such to have warmed that room. The very masonry bled its frigidity into the air.

Before we left, Dad asked if the Owens needed anything else and Mr Owen was so quick to say, “No, no David, we are just sorry to have bothered you. Thank you David.”

“Good night then, both,” Dad said.

“Good night, David,” he said. Mrs Owen nodded weakly again.

We walked back through the old shop and into the street.

Outside it was still raining, still cold, but the night air now seemed wonderfully clean and fresh and I took deep draughts of it as if all the while, inside Number 1, I had been holding my breath.

It was years later that it occurred to me to wonder why my father had taken me with him to see Mr and Mrs Owen at all.

I was surplus to requirements; neither use nor ornament when it came to the fixing of fuses.

Dad didn’t offer any explanation at the time, and young as I was I simply accepted that he wanted me to go with him and that was that.

Now I think he just wanted to show me, and so teach me something words could not entirely convey.

To have me witness how some people had to live.